1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to devices that include a man to machine interface (MMI) implemented using a touchscreen; and, more particularly, it relates to systems and methods for discriminating a user's interaction with such touchscreens.
2. Description of Related Art
Touchscreen technology is relatively new in the world of displays for stationary and mobile devices. Traditionally, an underlying layer of lines that can sense a user's touch are arranged in a patterned manner and are monitored iteratively for a signal that suggests a coordinate of a point that is touched. Initial systems were designed to detect a single touch. A new emphasis, however, is to develop touchscreen technology that can accurately detect multiple simultaneous touches. Some current technology for multi-finger touch works by charging and discharging a voltage on a row or column of a conductor and measuring a change in the charge when touched.
In discriminating between actual/real touch locations and false/phantom touch locations (e.g., a detected signal that does not correspond by an actual user's touch) made by a user interacting with the touchscreen, the prior art does not provide an adequate solution. Moreover, those prior art solutions that do in fact try to address discriminating between false/phantom touch locations and actual/real touch locations oftentimes have a relatively significant amount of provisioned hardware components to try to address such issues. Clearly, certain design considerations within touchscreens and touchscreen systems include efforts to reduce costs, complexity, size, etc. The prior art simply fails to provide an adequate and cost-effective solution to these many issues.